40 years on: memories of an era when winning at Epsom made a horse too valuable to race on

The media loves a good anniversary and one of the first things a broadcaster or newspaper assignments editor will do when they start planning coverage of a big annual event is to start looking at previous editions to see what happened ten, 20 or 30 years earlier. 

The 1984 Derby is worth revisiting on a number of different counts, and may be one of the most emblematic in how the race has changed. 

There was the dynastic element of 27-year-old David O'Brien beating his legendary father Vincent, a theme underscored by a rousing duel which ended with Secreto and Christy Roche beating El Gran Senor and Pat Eddery by a short head.